


Off the Map

by coquetteauxbasbleu



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:03:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coquetteauxbasbleu/pseuds/coquetteauxbasbleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madeline and Mac go off the map on Christmas day for a little side quest of Madeline’s devising…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off the Map

     A cold, sharp breeze rattled the few dry leaves left in the dead trees overhead as Madeline and MacCready trudged along the cracked sidewalk, careful to avoid piles of debris and hidden dangers. Madeline’s left ankle had never quite been the same since she had sprained it months ago in a stupid accident while climbing down the side of a dumpster, and stepping in a hole was all she needed to lay her up for days. As it was, she’d found a pair of tall boots to modify to give it a little more support, hoping she’d be less likely to randomly roll it while walking. 

      “Mads, where are we going? We’ve been headed North for three days…We passed through Salem this morning. We don’t have any supply points this far Northeast…” MacCready almost sounded worried.  _Maybe he thinks I’ve finally lost my shit and I’m just walking away from everything,_ Madeline mused as she rubbed her hands together, hoping to regain some feeling in the tips of her chilled fingers. Even her gloves couldn't keep this cold out. 

      “It’s a surprise.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him along, grinning, despite the frigid wind. They’d been following the coastline closely after leaving the settlement on Spectacle Island, and today was Christmas; the occasional snowflake fell, almost as if to remind them. It didn’t really snow anymore, not like before the bombs, but once in a while there’d be a few flakes here or there. Mac had seen pictures in a book of a blizzard, once, and Madeline had told him about being a kid and going out into snow up to her waist. “Sounds like sh--I mean, that sounds awful,” he’d said, but secretly he’d thought it would have been amazing. She’d build snow forts and had snowball fights and one time another kid threw a snowball at her that was actually made of ice and it gave her a black eye.  _Awesome._  Even if he would have killed that fucker if he’d been there.

     “A surprise. Are you joking? Madeline Anne Sullivan, what the fu…why would you think anything about a  _surprise_ would be something I’d like?” He dug his heels into the ground and stopped. Madeline turned and frowned at him. 

      “Come on, Mac. It’s just a little further. We’re not far. Look.” She held out her arm and tapped on the screen of her Pip-boy. “We’re in Beverly. I was born here.” She slid her finger over a little bit. “The hospital is over here…but that’s not what we came here for. It’s just a few more blocks and we’ll be there. It’s a special place, Mac. You’ll love it. I promise. I spent so much time there when I was a kid. I talked to some people and I think it’s mostly still okay and we’ll find some really great stuff there…” She looked up at him over the rims of her glasses, her wide, grey eyes pleading. “Please, Mac? We already came all this way…And it’s Christmas.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and put her chin against his sternum. He wasn’t particularly tall (pitfalls of growing up in a cave), but even next to him, she was a petite thing. All the better for sneaking, he supposed.  

      “A guilt trip. Nice, Maddie.” He tried to scowl, but it was hard to do with her small, soft body clinging to him. “Fine. But only because you dragged me along for three days before I realized we weren’t going somewhere for a job.” 

      “I never said we weren’t going for a _job_.” Madeline danced away from him, grinning, and reached into the pocket of her blue General’s coat. “I just didn’t say what kind of job we’d have when we got there.” She pulled her hand out and produced a mutfruit, holding it up between them and winking. 

     MacCready’s jaw almost hit the ground as he watched her return the fruit to her pocket and trot down the sidewalk. “Fuck, hold up, Maddie! I’m in on this job, I’m in!” 

 

 

     Within half an hour, they had arrived at an imposing granite building. It looked out of place, almost untouched amongst the crumbling brick and wooden neighborhood, all pillars and domes. The windows had been smashed out, but it otherwise looked relatively unscathed. The heavy metal doors were shut, as if they’d been left that way for the last 200 years.  _Beverly Public Library._  That explained it. Not much reason to scavenge a library once the tech had been pulled. Raiders didn’t read much. 

      Madeline crouched behind the hedge and peeked out, watching for some kind of movement. Nothing but leaves skittering across the dry, dead grass. Nothing moved inside. 

      “What do you think?” She asked, looking over her shoulder at MacCready, trying to temper the tone of her voice, but she was obviously excited. “This one…I think it’s empty. Of people, I mean. Not books. There aren’t many people around here. Not like the Boston library…I just know you liked to read in Little Lamplight and I thought…Maybe we could find some books to take back with us. Some good ones.” She started fiddling with the edge of her coat nervously, waiting for his reaction. “Merry Christmas?”

 _We walked three days for books? You’re fucking insane. God damn it, Mads. I fucking love you._ “You’re crazy, you know that? That rotten old place is probably infested with ferals and whatever books are left are probably too moldy to read and we’re not getting any caps for this…” He watched her turn back away from him, trying to hide her disappointment. “But I guess you might say my weekend is…all booked up.” 

      Madeline laughed, and her hand shot up to her mouth to stifle the sound. “Mac, you’re such a shit.” She pounced on him, nearly knocking them both onto the sidewalk, and planted a firm kiss on his lips, then stood up. “I don’t think there’s anything in there, but there are several floors, so let’s take it slow. I want to stay the night here…The top floor would be best, if I recall correctly, for that. There are some offices up there. I used to think it was haunted.” She shrugged. “Seen worse things than ghosts since then. Come on.” She tugged the edge of his duster impatiently. “I haven’t read  _Wuthering Heights_  or  _Frankenstein_  or any decent poetry in 200 years. And that mutfruit is still in my pocket.” 

 

 

      Maddie was like a ghost as she crept up the grand marble staircase, sticking close to the wall. She had been right, or the people she had talked to had; the library had been mostly untouched. Some shelves had been knocked over, and the computer terminals had been pulled at some point, but the books--it looked like they were still there, for the most part. MacCready thought Madeline looked like a kid in a candy store. Once they were sure the second story was empty, she holstered her pistol and started diving into the stacks while MacCready stood watch, rifle ready. 

     “What should we look for? Let’s make a list. Not just for here. For other libraries, too. I want to start a collection. For our house. And for Duncan and…and for Shaun. For um. For when they’re older.” Pain flashed across her face but she shook it off quickly, determined not to let it ruin this brief respite she had allowed herself. She dug through her pack and found a pen and a notebook. 

      “Well…We only had half of The Odyssey in Little Lamplight. The second half. And I’ve only read a short story by Hemingway, but I like him. Maybe we could look for more of his writing.” MacCready looked around the room as he thought. For a bunch of kids teaching other kids to read, they’d done damn well…Little Lamplight had managed to collect a pretty extensive library over the years…he was well-read, but growing up in a cave had its limits. 

      “Homer. Hemingway.” Madeline scribbled the names down in her notebook. “What about Steinbeck? Do you like Steinbeck? I think you’d like Steinbeck.” She didn’t wait for him to answer before writing that down, too, and tucking the pen and notebook back into her backpack. “Let’s just look around, see what we find, and we’ll add to our list if we’re inspired. I’m sure we’ll find wonderful things.” 

      MacCready couldn’t help but smile a little, even if the setup of the library put his nerves on edge. He loved seeing her excited, but the shelves everywhere, and the central balcony to the first floor left a lot of blind spots, and the open windows were to their backs. He didn’t like it, even if the building seemed clear. As usual, Madeline was mostly oblivious. _I don’t know how she even made it to Goodneighbor. Dogmeat? She’s an okay shot, I guess, but damn if the girl has an ounce of sense left when she finds something that catches her attention._  It could be an asset, he gave her that; her ability to block out distraction and zero in on a single task had saved their asses more than once. But he was afraid at some point she’d need to be able to look up from something to fire a shot and she wouldn’t be able to do it, and he wasn’t going to be there to do it for her. 

      The second story was mostly a loss. Humidity and mold had ruined nearly everything. Madeline found a salvageable book on astronomy and a couple botany books, but nothing would apply anymore; all the bombs had knocked the Earth’s axis off, and what the radiation hadn’t killed, it had mutated. She took them anyway. “Maybe we can figure out where the old constellations are…and corn is still the same…sort of.” She ran her fingers through her dark hair, ruffling the white patches in her bangs. Despite the frigid air, she had taken off her gloves to thumb through book pages, and her fingers were red with cold. 

      “Hey, Mads, look. It’s starting to get dark. Why don’t we make sure that upper floor you were talking about it clear and bunk down for the night.” MacCready took off his own gloves and grabbed one of her hands. “Your hands are like ice.” He frowned. “You can’t let yourself get cold like this. We don’t have a good way to warm up here. A fire would just attract attention…and we’re inside.” He picked her gloves up off the floor and handed them to her before putting his own back on, and and slowly started heading towards the stairs, checking around each shelf as he went. Madeline followed slowly, wiggling her fingers to try to get the blood flowing again.  _You know better than that,_  she chastised herself,  _you grew up here, you moron. What would you do if you got frostbite? Try living in the Wastelands without any fingers, jackass._  She frowned.  _Third floor is fiction. Maybe something up there will be salvageable. There aren’t any windows, less humidity as long as the roof hasn’t leaked too much. Chances that the roof of a 400 year old building hasn’t leaked…?_  She sighed, too loudly, and MacCready stopped and looked at her from the bottom step.

      “It’s nothing, I’m fine. This just…I thought this was going to be a little different, that’s all.” She looked disappointed. “A little warmer, maybe. And…more books. Better books. I should have known better. Nothing is ever left the way it used to be. It’s been 200 years. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She started up the stairs, brushing past him, too quickly. One-track. 

      “Madeline.” He hissed, reaching to grab the back of her coat, but he missed. He started trying to scramble up the steps after her, but she was too quick, and in her fit of temper she had forgotten that they hadn’t already cleared the third floor. In her mind, she already knew the layout; she knew where she was going. She wasn’t expecting a feral ghoul to launch itself out from around the top of the stairs, knocking her clean off her feet. The weight of her pack dragged her down and then a second ghoul, and a third were on top of her before she could even make a sound. 

     “Fuck! Madeline!” MacCready tried to line up a shot, but the way she was flailing he was afraid he would hit her, so he charged up the stairs and knocked one of the ferals off her with the butt of his rifle, crumpling its skull. That gave Madeline just enough space to land a solid punch to another and roll to her side so she could pull her irradiated .10 mm out and fire several shots into another ghoul. The last ghoul sprang back to its feet just in time for MacCready to land a shot directly between its eyes. It dropped immediately, landing next to Madeline, who was semi-upright and was using her knife to cut the straps of her pack off. 

      “Get this…get this fucking thing off me…” She was muttering. She didn’t usually carry a pack, but had thought since they’d be going off their usual routes, it might be useful. _So much for that theory_ , she thought. She pulled a few stimpaks out of it and put them in the inner pockets of her coat, took the books and put them in a cross-body satchel with some food and their caps, and left the rest of the pack’s contents (mostly bits of junk she had collected) and the pack itself in a pile. “We…we don’t need it. I shouldn’t have been carrying it. It threw me off balance.” Her breath was coming in short puffs of freezing steam. 

      MacCready reached out and ran his thumb over the scratch marks on her cheek, and her bloodied lip. “One of them socked you fu–pretty good, Mads. What were you thinking, storming up here like that?” He frowned. “You weren’t thinking. You were upset that this didn’t turn out the way you wanted. Right?” 

      “I just wanted a normal Christmas. I wanted to find some books for you.” Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly. 

     “Was digging around in abandoned libraries what you did for Christmas before the war? I always read people just put up a tree and some lights and exchanged gifts. You’re fucking crazy, you know that? Come on. Let’s find those offices and get settled down…Hopefully those were the only ghouls in here.” MacCready helped her to her feet and his heart sank. “Mads, your ankle…?”

      “I…When they knocked me down I rolled it. It’ll be okay. I just need to get somewhere and put it up.” 

 _The last time you rolled it you were stuck in Sanctuary two weeks. It’ll take two days to walk back there from here._ MacCready set his mouth in a firm line. “Okay. Let’s go. Stay behind me. Take your time. Where are these offices?” 

      “Straight ahead. Between the stacks. Take a right at the end, follow the wall, go through the door…I might have to pick the lock. There are three offices back there. I used to volunteer here in high school.” 

      Without further incident, they made it into the back offices. The lock wasn’t an easy pick, but Madeline got it after a few broken bobby pins, and latched it behind them. The offices were cold and quiet. Thick dust had settled, and seemed untouched. Closing themselves into the back office and moving a desk in front of the door, MacCready set down his small pack and unrolled their sleeping bags. “Here. Put your foot up.” He helped her sit against the wall on one of the sleeping bags and propped her leg up on the box, then sat down next to her, wrapping the remaining sleeping bag around them. He knew the mutfruit was still in her pocket and gritted his teeth.  _But she’s alive. Merry Christmas._

      Madeline put her chin on his shoulder and whispered against his neck. “I’m sorry I dragged you out here. It was stupid. I’m sorry I stomped up the stairs into a bunch of ferals. That was stupid, too. This entire idea was stupid.” 

      MacCready took his glove off and stroked her dark, straight hair. She had managed to concoct some kind of powder with tato blossoms that left it soft and smelling distinctly sweet, even when she couldn’t wash it. 

     “Yeah. It was pretty stupid. Might say you had…Great Expectations. No?” Even in the dark, he knew she was rolling her eyes. 

      “Oh, Jesus, Mac. If I didn’t love you, I’d slap you for that one.” 

      He grinned. “Well, we’re stuck here at least for tonight. Probably longer with your ankle…Need some entertainment. Remind me to see if we can get that bum leg swapped out for a newer model when we get back to civilization, by the way.” He tucked his hand back under the sleeping bag and gripped her shoulder. “Thank you, Madeline.” 

     She huffed. “For what?”

     “For the first Christmas I’ve had in years.”


End file.
